State v. Souther

2017 ME 184, 169 A.3d 927
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedAugust 22, 2017
DocketDocket: Ken-16-572
StatusPublished

This text of 2017 ME 184 (State v. Souther) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Souther, 2017 ME 184, 169 A.3d 927 (Me. 2017).

Opinion

MEAD, J.

[¶ 1] Samantha Souther appeals from a judgment of conviction of operating under the influence. (Class D), 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(A) (2016), entered by the trial court (Kennebec County, Fowle, J,) following a jury trial. Souther contends that the court abused its discretion in its pretrial ruling excluding her proposed expert testimony as to her peak blood alcohol concentration at the time that she was driving. Concluding that Souther failed to present the court with any proper basis upon which to admit the proffered evidence, we affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the jury could rationally have found the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Rourke, 2017 ME 10, ¶ 2, 154 A.3d 127.

[¶3] On April 12, 2016, Maine State Trooper Greg Stevens responded to a report of an erratic driver. Another driver had called 9-1-1 after seeing Souther’s vehicle swerve several times and nearly veer under a truck. Trooper Stevens observed Souther’s vehicle drift between lanes and initiated a traffic stop. When he approached Souther’s vehicle, he noticed the smell of intoxicants coming from her car and observed that her eyes were glassy and bloodshot, her speech was slurred and deliberate, and she fumbled with her paperwork. He also observed unopened beer cans in the vehicle and an open sixteen-ounce can of beer on the floor between Souther’s feet. Trooper Stevens administered three field sobriety tests and found indications of impairment on each test. He arrested Souther for operating under the influence. See 29-A M.R.S. § 2411(1-A)(A).

[¶ 4] The complaint against Souther alleged only that she “did operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants,” see id, § 2411(1-A)(A)(1);1 it did not allege the statutory alternative that she operated “[w]hile having an alcohol level of 0.08 grams or more of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood or 210 liters of breath,” id. § 2411(1-A)(A)(2). A one-day jury trial was held on December 22, 2016. Prior to trial, Souther proposed a stipulation as to her peak blood alcohol content at the time that she was driving and sought to admit expert testimony that, applying the Widmark formula,2 a 115-pound female who consumed one sixteen-ounce [929]*929beer (the size of the open container that was between Souther’s feet when she was stopped) with about a 5% alcohol content would have a peak blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%.' She argued that this evidence would be relevant to the issue of impairment and noted that Maine law prescribes presumptions of impairment or non-impairment for certain blood alcohol levels. See 29-A M.R.S. § 2482 (2016). The State asserted that it had already stipulated that it would not seek to admit evidence of a blood alcohol test result3 and argued that it would confuse the jury “to be given a number” when the only issue was whether or not Souther was impaired.

[¶ 5] The court determined that South-er’s proposed expert testimony would be excluded. It explained:

[Jjust so that the ... parties are clear on my finding, it wasn’t so much that there wasn’t any relevance to this information, I thought it had the potential to confuse the jury and to prejudice one side or the other. I’m not sure that—this is an impairment case, this is not an excessive blood alcohol level case, this is an impairment case. This information might very well—I could see this information helping the [Sjtate or helping the defense. And because there’s no bench line, there is no objective measure that the jury is going to be told about, the 0.08 or the point whatever the test was that the parties have agreed to be stricken, I think that ... under a Rule 403 determination, that analysis, ... the potential for confusion for either side outweighs any probative value of the evidence.

Souther then argued that pursuant to 29-A M.R.S. § 2432(1)—which she summarized as providing that “[i]f a person has an alcohol level of 0.05 grams or less of alcohol, it [is] prima [facie] evidence that the person is not under, the influence of alcohol”—evidence that Souther’s blood alcohol level was below 0,05% is “by statute ... the type of evidence that can be presented because it is informative on the issue of impairment, on whether someone is under the influence.” Souther indicated that she would have sought a jury instruction on this point. . The court responded:

We’re not going to hear any evidence today, as I understand it, as- to what the blood alcohol level is, this is an impairment case. If there were a test result, be it 0.09, 0.14, whatever the test result would have been, all of. this would have been highly relevant and highly admissible. But this is an impairment case. This determination by the jury is .going to be made upon objective evidence presented concerning Ms. Souther’s condition at the time that she was driving..
[A]nd so ,., I understand the argument ... but again, Rule 403, I think the potential for confusion to the jury and the prejudicial impact on either party to this case outweighs the probative value. The jury is not going to have any test result or benchmark with which to measure [the expert’s testimony, so my decision on that stands but your issue is preserved.

[¶ 6] The jury found Souther guilty of operating under the influence. The court entered judgment on the conviction and imposed an $800 fíne and ordered that her license be suspended for 150 days. Souther timely appealed. See M.R. App. P. 2.

II, ■ DISCUSSION

[¶ 7] Maine Rule of Evidence 403 provides that a court may exclude other[930]*930wise relevant evidence “if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of ... unfair prejudice [or] confusing the issues.” “We review a trial court’s rulings on relevance for clear error, and rulings on admissibility for an abuse of discretion.” State v. Maine, 2017 ME 25, ¶ 23, 155 A.3d 871 (alteration, citation, and quotation marks omitted). “A court abuses its discretion in ruling on evidentiary issues if the ruling arises from a failure to apply principles of law applicable to a situation resulting in prejudice.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).

[¶ 8] We have upheld the admissibility of expert testimony applying the Widmark formula in State v. Tibbetts, 604 A.2d 20, 21-22 (Me. 1992). In that case, Tibbetts was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or while having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% or more after he crashed his vehicle into a guardrail. Id. at 21. A breath test administered about two hours after the accident measured his blood alcohol concentration at 0.18%. Id. At trial, “[t]here was conflicting evidence as to whether Tibbetts had consumed any alcohol between the time of the accident and the arrival of the trooper.” Id. Over Tibbetts’s objection, the State presented an expert witness who opined that, according to the Widmark formula and using “estimated values ... to account for Tib-betts’s weight and the alcohol he allegedly consumed before and after the accident,” Tibbetts’s blood alcohol concentration at the time of the accident was between 0.14% and 0.16%. Id. at 21-22.

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Related

State v. Tibbetts
604 A.2d 20 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1992)
State v. Richford
519 A.2d 193 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1986)
State v. Grigsby
666 A.2d 503 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1995)
State of Maine v. Jerry Lee Adams
2015 ME 30 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 2015)
State of Maine v. Bradley R. Atkins
2015 ME 162 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 2015)
State of Maine v. Karl Maine
2017 ME 25 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 2017)
State v. Rourke
2017 ME 10 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2017 ME 184, 169 A.3d 927, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-souther-me-2017.